


save yourself for someone else

by okneiljos



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Dialogue Light, Hardly Any Dialogue, M/M, last of us au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27301114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okneiljos/pseuds/okneiljos
Summary: aftg the last of us au
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	save yourself for someone else

**Author's Note:**

> hiya this was a piece i did for a zine, i'm posting it now bc i'm just now feeling motivated to start writing again. also i added more to it bc i was limited to like 1k words. title is from a kaleo song

When Renee told him about the job he hadn't wanted to take it at first, it seemed like far too much work. Then she’d said, "We don't have a choice, we need the guns.” Andrew had simply leveled her with a look and she’d sighed and left it alone, she knew it was best that way.

She was right and wrong, right that if they didn't do this they wouldn't get what they needed. However, if they didn't get what they needed because he'd decided he didn’t care… well, he wasn’t responsible for what happened. Everyone’s fate wasn’t up to him. In the end Renee was really the only person he could tolerate for more than five minutes at a time and he could actually say he liked her so he decided to go along with it. She was one of the rare few that was left. 

He almost wished he believed in regret so he could put a name to this feeling. Had she asked him again with the knowledge he had now, it would have been an instant and resounding “ _no_ ”. If the long journey wasn't enough, the near constant stream of infected they ran into and had close calls with was. Andrew wasn't averse to killing people but running into so many desperate people in such a short period of time was a hindrance. Renee, however, was as peachy as ever, the cross dangling from her neck barely losing it's shine. Andrew shot her dirty looks on more than one occasion.

When they met with Seth he looked worse than usual which was saying something, it looked like he'd been injured—shot or stabbed. King Firefly, as they called him, Andrew really doubted them on principle if they elected him to be their leader. When he started talking about smuggling, Andrew realized this wasn’t the everyday run of the mill job, and that it wasn't a good idea. It actually seemed like a terrible idea that was likely to kill them but Renee said they needed the guns; Andrew really couldn't have cared less. Although, he did find it interesting when Seth opened the freezer door and out came a red-headed man with a face of fury and eyes that promised murder.

"I'm going to kill you," he seethed.

"Sure you are, Nathaniel." Seth turned towards them wincing in the process, seeming unbothered with turning his back to this Nathaniel. "This is what I need smuggled."

"My name is Neil." The man corrected instantly.

That single sentence, from a man who looked ready to run at the slightest hint of trouble, was the last nail in Andrew’s already partly sealed coffin.

* * *

Neil was as infuriating as he was attractive, and that was saying something. The entire journey he made it entirely too clear how ungrateful he was for their transportation and protection, as claimed he was capable of protecting himself. Muttered about how he'd been doing it since he was young and had been doing a better job of it, Andrew would always retort that he’d clearly done a horrible job of it. Neil was either silent and wry, with surly looks or his words were as sharp as the knives hidden on Andrew's person and his eyes were a blazing fire of barely contained rage. The difference between these two characters in Neil was compelling to Andrew, because in the end they were two sides of the same coin, each side tried so hard to pretend that it was something different than what it really was.

Renee also seemed at least slightly curious about him, whenever her questions hinted at the reason for their journey Neil would go silent or change the subject. Which only made Andrew more interested and more suspicious.

Andrew figured certain things out about him, the information was found easily in his tells and what little he revealed about himself when he got angry enough to exchange words with Andrew. Yet he still knew so little about the man. So when they were cornered by military officials and had guns pointing in their faces, rain beating down upon them, and that stupid machine scanning them for the virus that destroyed their civilization, it shouldn't really have come to that much of a shock.

That Neil was, as he later said, immune.

The bite mark proved it. The longer they spent with him that he didn't turn continued to prove it.

All the time that he spent with Neil was just as unreal as everything else in their world now. Neil wasn't real to him, in a few days or weeks they'd never see him again—because apparently there'd be a cure and all would be rainbows and sunshine.

Andrew didn't look at him as if he were real. Maybe that was why he felt like he could indulge in the game of truths Neil seemed to like playing. There was only so much he could ascertain from what Neil did and didn't say. He let himself indulge in the game when one season turned to another and somehow he found himself looking at Neil like he was a real thing. Though he knew Neil was only a pipe dream, something desired that he could never truly grasp. He let himself indulge in the game around the time Renee died, he thought that might have been his way of grieving.

He also let himself keep her cross even if his memory was near perfect it was nice to have something of her.

It was around the time he kissed Neil that he knew Neil's level of being infuriating knew no bounds, that he knew Neil had become something more to him. Neil was as terrible as he was fascinating to Andrew. Both were bad on their own but together they were a very dangerous mix.

When they arrived at the Capitol building the odd thing was how disconnected from reality it felt. In the beginning, even getting here didn't feel like a reality, and now here they were and it didn't feel real. It was a conundrum that endlessly confused him.

Seth informed him what needed to be done to Neil as soon as he had been ushered out of the room. Really... what else could he have expected? When Andrew thought about it, _really thought_ , Neil dying to possibly save the rest of humanity seemed to be the only viable outcome. All Andrew could think about was how shitty the world had become and how a vaccine could change it. He was hit with a fleeting memory of the round of their game where he’d ended up making a promise to watch over Neil, to protect him. Andrew didn't feel like breaking his word; so fuck the rest of the world.

The world was shitty even before everyone turned into zombies and started devouring every living thing they saw.

"—don't have to worry about the little bastard anymore," Seth was saying. Andrew had the courtesy to wait until he'd finished his sentence to shoot him in the face, he just didn't have the courtesy to listen to what was being said.

Andrew didn't even wait for his body to hit the linoleum before he went to find Neil.

**Author's Note:**

> i might expand on this au idea i'm not totally sure yet but lemme know what you think


End file.
